Flowers For McGee

3 - Town

Rose went with her mother to town to get proper cleaning supplies for the dusty old home. The mop they found looked like it was used to clean up the black plague.

Maggie also wanted to spend some one-one-one time with her daughter and Rose wasn't going to tell her no. There wasn't a strong bond between the two given their obvious differences and their pasts together.

Maggie and Johnny enjoyed fancy restaurants and looking at museums, that was their bond. They were both smart and enjoyed expensive things.

Rose liked simple things. She liked to play Guitar Hero and go to the closest pizza place. With her dad gone, she had no one to do that with.

"How are you liking it?" Maggie asks Rose and her head snaps over and she pulls her ear buds out. "I was thinking you could repaint your room, I know pink isn't your color." Maggie says and smiles.

Thanks, Johnny, Rose thinks and she smiles at her mom. "Yeah, I could do that."

"We will repair the wallpaper in some rooms, but I was thinking we could just redo yours completely." Maggie says and Rose has a small pang in her chest that she can't explain.

"I don't want to cost you anything extra." Rose tells her mother and frowns. Maggie waves it off and smiles again.

"Whatever you want to do. Johnny says he likes his room the way it is, but those floors definitely have to be replaced. It was his idea to let you paint." Maggie says.

Rose tries hard not to be mad at the mention of her brother, she knows it was just a casual way of carrying on the conversation. But if this was their time, why bring him up at all?

"I guess." Rose says and then frowns at herself. She has never been angry or jealous of Johnny before, so the thoughts were new to her. "I think I'll just paint my walls white, if that's okay." Rose says.

"Just white?" Maggie asks and raises her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I feel like it will settle with the house more than some wacky color." Rose says and fidgets with her seatbelt.

"You can do anything you want to it so, remember that." Maggie says and Rose nods.

"Listen mom, you don't have to let me do all things things to get me to like it here. I'm sure I'll be fine." Rose says to her mother and Maggie visibly relaxes in her seat.

They get to town within a few minutes and Rose notices how lively it is and she scowls at the amount of people. They pull up to a hardware store and a small smile creeps into Rose's face.

Rose quickly scrambles out of the car and Maggie follows at her own pace. Rose looks around the shop and at all the tools. These things were familiar to her and makes her feels comfortable.

John, her father, was a retired architect before he died. After retirement, he worked at a simple little hardware store. He would still get that itch and sometimes they would build something.

Rose like those times, but they all stopped.

Rose sees someone move beyond a shelf out of the corner of her eye and she quickly looks over, but she is too late and the person is gone.

"What do you think about this?" Maggie asks as she looks around plain white tile. Rose just glances over and then back to the shelf where she sees blonde hair flying out the door.

"Yeah, it's nice." Rose looks back at mother, who has already moved on. "Oh, okay, wait for me." Rose says and jogs over to her mom.
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Rose carries the bags into the house and Maggie tells her to set the items in the storage room on the third floor and Rose internally screams at the thought of carrying the items up the stairs, but Rose simply smiles and does what she is told.

She sees Johnny coming down the stairs to the second floor as she reaches the landing and he takes a bag from her.

"Jesus, what did she buy, hundred-pound weights?" He asks and looks in the bag.

"Um, paint brushed, rollers, and everything else paint related. She ordered a ton of stuff that will come in soon." Rose says and shakes her tired fingers.

"Of course. Here, I will help," Johnny says and they walk up the stairs and he shows Rose the room to set the bags and Maggie yells for Johnny. "Hey, take these boxes up to the attic." Johnny pats the top of a giant box and Rose scoffs.

"I'm not going up there." Rose says and Johnny sighs dramatically.

"Oh, my God. Just do it, scaredy-cat. Believe it or not, you won't die." He says and Rose watches ad he quickly runs down the stairs.

"Scaredy-cat." Rose mimicks his voice and picks up a box and walks to the center of the third floor and looks at the attic.

There is a light up there and she could see clearly but all she could picture is something eating her face off.

For some odd reason, that made her not want to go up there.

She pushes her fear out of her mind and slowly puts her foot on the first step. She slowly climbs up, struggling a little with the box and finding her footing on the stairs.

The attic was completely ordinary and Rose was a little bummed out about that. She puts the box next to the others and she looks around.

The attic was relatively small. Rose expected it to be a little bigger. There were boxes here and there. Antiques that Maggie probably didn't want downstairs were also stacked up here.

The clothes from her closet were hanging neatly in the back corner. She gives them a fleeting glance and then puts her foot on the first step.

They rustle and Rose stands at the opening of the attic and stares at them intensely. The only thing visible is a small pair of shoes at the bottom of the rack. Rose squints at them and the left show moves forward.

Rose walks over and quickly separates the clothes and looks down at the empty shoes and she frowns. "What?" She asks and then a small mouse crawls out of the shoe that moved.

"Oh, I'm an idiot." Rose says and shakes her head. She turns to leave and she crawls down the latter. She doesn't notice the shoes following her.

Rose walks down stairs to the dining room where Maggie and Johnny are. Her mother is explaining her new layout plan. Rose joins the conversation and a shadow of blue fabric and blonde hair crouches under the table just below them.